I am taking refuge in my room from the 7-year-old terror that won't stop throwing Legos at me.  It is such a strange experience going from an abnormally calm/nice older sister to an abnormally (I can only hope, for all the mothers out there) hyper younger brother.  Unfortunately for everyone involved, Belgian primary schools are a lot stricter about kids doing homework and behaving in class, so he has lots of notes in red (that means they're bad) in his 'Journal de Classe.'  Which means that I have to try to be strict with him, and it's not going well.  If he's doing something like putting peas in his mouth and spitting them back out (a favorite activity whenever my host mom cooks a dinner containing peas) it's easier, but when he wants to play games he knows very well how to pander to my baby animal (and small child)-loving side.

Outside my host family, I've been doing some Christmas shopping after school-- it's weird to be thinking about already, but I know I should put a box in the mail sometime soon.  It also helps that I have 20 minutes between the time my bus arrives and the time school starts, so I take refuge inside various stores.  I also finally bought a Belgian flag, which I've been looking for for a while, at the, ironically, 'American Store.'  For whatever reason, Belgians don't own flags (at least, nobody that I asked had one) and don't sell them, either.  I'm thinking that 'American' might be they're way of saying that things there are cheap, because the flags out front and one small section of camo jackets were the only things there that seemed particularly American.


My little brother has come in to tell me it's time for dinner-- let's hope for no peas.

À tantôt!